Lubbock Texas mission

This week flew by super fast. Conference weekend was great and such a spiritual feast. We couldn’t wait to hear what chance had been up to and what he had to say about conference. I was excited to see what his experience would be like watching conference as a missionary and, as you will read in his letter, it sounded like a great spiritual time for him.

Well this last week was really awesome. So tuesday we went to Lubbock for zone training. We had a lesson about praying to find investigators. So when we got back i went to the map of Tulia and prayed to know where to go. At first i decided we would knock 4th street. so i prayed for confirmation but when i ended my prayer i had a thought to go to lynn street. this was an area we would have never gone. So i pushed it to the back of my mind but it kept coming back so i prayed for confirmation on it and i got it. So we went to lynn street and the first door we knock a lady named christina answers. She told us it wasnt a good time but to come back monday night. i thought i was guided there because of her. we knocked a few more doors and then as we were walking up to a door the neighbor waved at us and talked to us and we found out he was going to a volleyball game. so we finished at the house we were at and when we got done the same guy pulls out of his driveway and tells us he really wants us to come back and visit with him and his wife. It was so awesome and now i know why i was sent to lynn street! We tried his house two more times and he was gone both but his wife told us to come back today at 6 so we are going to. He is the youth minister at the baptist church so im pretty nervous but he seemed like he really wanted to learn and i hope im right. itll be cool. The rest of the week was finding and we didnt have a ton of luck but we did get fed alot. Im getting better at spanish haha because a lot of the people only speak spanish so you have to learn it pretty much even if your an english missionary. i understand a lot more than i can speak but im learning. One of the days we did service at the hospital and that was really fun. Saturday and Sunday we watched conference and it was awesome! ive never watched every session before but it was the best. On saturday we watched it at the Roberts and then on sunday we watched it at the Rollins. In between sessions we went to there barn and elder mozingo grabbed one of their chickens and held it upside down and rubbed its stomach and slowly set it down and it totally just passed out on its head with its feet in the air. It was hilarious. He learned it from the crow indians. Idk if i told you about him but he lived with the crow a lot growing up so he knows some pretty cool stuff. he can speak there language too and its awesome. Anyways i just want to end with a couple challenges with my testimony mixed in.

1.Pray with faith.

2.feed your joy continually

I would like to challenge all of you to pray with faith. In the sunday morning session a speaker asked a really good question. He asked “when we pray, are we really praying, or just saying our prayers?” Before my mission and even the first couple weeks i was just saying my prayers. I wasnt offering a prayer of faith. This involves a trust in our father in Heaven and a sincere desire to talk with Him. Last week my mission president said something ill never forget. He said “dont pray hoping god might do something. Pray knowing he will.” Thats a prayer of faith. Its not demanding to ask God if he WILL do something. It is however harmful to ourspiritual growth and our faith in Him to ask if he might do something. My first few weeks i prayed asking “please bless the spirit MIGHT be with us” or ” please bless they MAY open their hearts” we need to pray that the spirit WILL be with us. Also avoid repetitious praying. (matt. 6:7). Your Heavenly Father wants to hear from you but he wants to hear it out of the sincerity of your heart. Ive found that as i try to avoid repitious praying i naturally begin to pray in faith. i promise as you do these things your faith will only grow stronger along with your relationship with God. Remember, your father in heaven knows what your going through and what you want. But hes given us prayer as a way to show our faith is strong enough in him to ask him.

Now my second Challenge. Russel M Nielson gave an awesome talk on joy. He said 3 things that really stood out to me. 1. Mormons find happiness in any circumstance. 2. Our sorrows are consecrated to our joy. 3. Learn to suffer with joy. I think the reason mormons are always happy is they carry the pure and true light and love of christ. (matt 5:16). Now lets talk about sorrows and suffering. Sometimes we get down or have a bad day and think “why me?” what we need to do is look at it as a learning or growing experience. There is a reason god put trials in our life. He wants to see if we have the faith and humbleness to turn our stumbling blocks into stepping stones. the same goes for suffering with joy. This doesnt mean we have to enjoy having a rough day. It means through it all you still show love and the light of christ. It still doesnt mean our trials wont be hard. Even Jesus needed help. when he suffered in Gethsemane he asked God to remove that bitter cup of anguish, so god sent an angel to comfort and support him. (luke 22:42-43) If we are struggling all we need to do is ask god for comfort and he will send it. I know these things are true and i know God does and will answer prayers. Thats my challenges this week. Love Yall!!

This Wednesday we also received a text from sister roberts. It came as a surprise and this is what it said-

Say an extra prayer for your favorite missionaries tonight! They are at the Baptist church bible study group!

It was great to hear this live update and we are counting our blessings that we have someone that can keep us updated on chance so we don’t have to wait a whole week. It also gives us peace of mind knowing he has such wonderful people taking care of him and to know Emily will contact us, or we can contact her is so reassuring and makes us feel more at peace. It sounds like he has a second family he is forming in tulia and we couldn’t be happier. So back to the text :). As she continued to text us for the next little bit we found out that the youth minister that he had mentioned in his letter had invited them dinner and then invited them to the youth study group. The preacher wouldn’t let them go to the youth bible study, but they were aloud in with the adults. She later told us that she received a text from them that everything went well. So, it sounds like we should have a fun letter coming this Monday. We can’t wait to hear exactly what happened or how they felt about it but I’m sure it was a great learning experience and hopefully they met a few friends along the way. Until next time, I would just like to leave with a quote from one of my favorite talks given at conference. If you missed this talk try to take a minute and look it up. It was beautiful and I couldn’t help feel the spirit testifying to me that we really are spirit children of a divine God. That our potential in this life and the next is more than we can comprehend and if we could only begin to understand what infinite and spiritual strength each of us has inside us, we would never doubt our self worth ever again. There is divine godly powers in each one of us and we are all sons and daughters of a king.